The Randall's House construction BLOG!
Its Done! See details of the Completed home.
SPECIAL NOTE: It finally occurred to John while waiting for all of these pictures to load, that he should rethink his web organization. In order for the most recent images to appear first, time now proceeds from bottom to top instead of top to bottom! We will update the progress every once in a while. Back to the Randall's Home Page.
The house as of May 14, 2005. Grass! Trees! Balcony Railings! We have passed electrical and plumbing finals. We plan to be in the house in 2 weeks.
The house as of April 30, 2005. The driveway is done, the gutters are on and the lot has been graded in preparation for grass!
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The house as of April 23, 2005. The driveway is going in! The little guy in the cage had been living in our attic and off of food left in the house by the workers. John planned for a week and trapped him in two hours.
The house as of April 16, 2005 (Patrice's Birthday). The stucco is done (well almost) this is starting to look like what we had in mind.
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The house as of March 25, 2005. The stucco has taken a long time but the trim is starting to go on. The inside is painted. Check out the view of our dining room fireplace.
The house as of Feb 19, 2005. The stucco is starting to go on (at least the scaffolding is going up). The real action is on the inside. The walls are textured, the cabinets are in, and the stair and upstairs walkway is being installed.
The house as of Jan 29, 2005. It still looks pretty much the same on the outside, but the sheetrock is up and they are taping and floating. See the large Tape and Float insect that is working on our house. Patrice likes what she sees.
The house as of January 15, 2005. After living in a house where Ashley plays her stereo loud, Ian plays computer games load, and John Plays the saxophone badly, Patrice wanted a quiet house. Note the insulation on the INSIDE walls.
The house as of Nov. 7, 2004. Note the upstairs (temporary) doors.
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The house as of Oct 31, 2004. Finally some progress we can see from the outside. We are parked in our driveway for the first time. Note the doors to keep hob-goblins out during trick or treat time. We also passed electrical inspection! For those of you that have demanded more indoor shots, a view of our livingroom including the fireplace.
The house as of July 31, 2004. All the action is on the inside. Patrice inspects a hot water heater.
The house as of July 24, 2004. From the outside it looks the same as last week. But the plumbers are here.
The house as of July 17, 2004. The roof is finally done. We hope progress can pick up again.
The house as of July 6, 2004. Shingles are partially done.
The house as of July 3, 2004. The shingles finally showed up. You can see the packages spread around on the roof.
The house as of June 26, 2004. The shingles are back ordered! Patrice is so peaved that she won't stand in the picture.
The house as of June 19, 2004. The roof decking is done and some felt is on the roof.
The house as of June 12, 2004. Lots and lots of rain. But the roof decking is almost done.
The house as of June 5, 2004. In spite of lots of rain. The cornice is done.
The house as of May 29, 2004. The rafters are up! Stonehenge is down!
The house as of May 22, 2004. The interior walls are framed, both upstairs and down and the second story is decked. The rafters are almost complete. Carpenters move fast!! This shot is from a slightly different angle that excludes the Port-o-potty and shows a strange "Stonehenge" like structure made from spare AAC blocks. John claims that it was space aliens that created the mysterious structure. Patrice is not convinced.
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The house as of May 16, 2004. THE AAC WALLS ARE DONE!!! I tried to get Patrice to jump for Joy but it was too hot. Patrice stands for the first time on the raised walkway over our entry and living room.
The house as of May 5, 2004. We got more U-Blocks (after a few weeks). The walls are almost DONE!!!
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The house as of April 24, 2004. AAARRRGGHHH!! We ran out of U-Blocks. This means the walls are still ALMOST done. Hopefully the walls are done by May 1.
The house as of April 17, 2004. The walls are ALMOST DONE!!
The house as of April 10, 2004. Most of the progress is in the back.
The house as of April 3, 2004. After MORE THAN 3 MONTHS, construction finally resumes. Don't ask about the interim unless you want to see Patrice boil. We now have the crew we should have hired in the first place, and although the progress is not very appearent in this photo, we are very happy and greatly relieved to see our house being worked on again.
The house as of Dec 20, 2003. Note the stunning lack of progress. We fired the crew putting up the walls. Patrice was happy to see them go.
The house as of Dec 13, 2003. The walls creep up slowly.
The house as of Dec 6, 2003. Progress on the walls has been slow. Patrice is not entirely happy.
The house as of Nov. 29, 2003. Look how tall Ian is between Ashley and Patrice!
The house as of Nov. 22, 2003. Look how tall the walls are going to be!
The house as of Nov. 15, 2003. The upstairs walls are going up!
The house as of Nov. 8, 2003. The downstairs walls near completion.
The house as of Nov. 1, 2003. The walls continue to slowly go up. The pile of gravel will be a temporary driveway.
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The house as of Oct. 25, 2003. The view from the side shows more process.
The house as of Oct. 18, 2003. Ashley comes in from UTSA to view the house and attend Ian's 14th Birthday Party. The stacks of AAC blocks get smaller as the walls grow.
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The house as of Oct. 11, 2003. We have a Port A Potty! The AAC blocks are beginning for form the walls of our House. Patrice stands in her new bath room.
The house as of Oct. 4, 2003. The AAC blocks are here! Look closely on the right and see construction of our Bedroom walls.
The house as of Sept 28, 2003. Our super strong storm shelter stands!
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The slab being poured (pumped). The slab being polished.
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The house as of Sept 20, 2003. SLAB DAY!! A Behemoth Concrete pumper delivers 10 trucks worth of concrete this morning.
The house as of Sept 13, 2003. Max and Patrice can't find the slab. It rained all last week. We are hoping the slab gets poured next week.
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The house as of September 6, 2003. What has been done? Foundation Prep!!
The house as of August 30, 2003. More dirt moving. There is a weed growng in front of our house. Its Ian!
The house as of August 23, 2003. The plumbing is going in. Patrice is still smiling!
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The house as of August 16, 2003. Foundation trenches dug. Patrice found, on our lot, a dirt clod that looks like lion head. Since the house will have a lion theme, we took this as a good omen.
The house as of August 9, 2003. Foundation forms are going up.
Patrice has wanted to build a house for as long as she could remember. She had already decided on the European construction technique of Aerated Autoclaved Concrete (AAC) before we went to live in Belgium. When we got back in 1999 she went on a serious search for land suitable to build a house on. The criteria were several:
The land had to be pretty.
We needed at least half an acre.
A builder who would be happy to have you choose from their 3 floorplans could NOT be the current owner.
The land would have to be zoned so that Ashley could attend Plano East Senior High School.
Since there is very little undeveloped land in the area and 99% of the lots failed criteria 2 and/or 3, Patrice had her work cut out for her. However, after over 2 years of serious searching, Patrice used her inside connections at the city of Richardson to locate a new subdivision that was being developed but not yet advertised, and we bought the first lot in the Hills of Breckenridge in Jan 2001. The deal included a 10% rebate if we broke ground within 6 months. Piece of Cake we thought. Well as you can probably figure out by now, this did not happen. There were many reasons for the delay in getting our house started, redesigns, budget considerations, new building materials and techniques, etc., but the important point is that on August 3, 2003, We broke ground!
The house as of August 3, 2003. The lot is "benched".
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